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<H1 class="no-header">curs_printw 3x 2025-01-18 ncurses 6.5 Library calls</H1>
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<STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG>                  Library calls                 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG>




</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
       <STRONG>printw</STRONG>,  <STRONG>wprintw</STRONG>,  <STRONG>mvprintw</STRONG>,  <STRONG>mvwprintw</STRONG>,  <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>,  <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG>  - write
       formatted output to a <EM>curses</EM> window


</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
       <STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG>&lt;curses.h&gt;</STRONG>

       <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>printw(const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>
       <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>wprintw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>
       <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>mvprintw(int</STRONG> <EM>y</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>int</STRONG> <EM>x</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>
       <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>mvwprintw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>int</STRONG> <EM>y</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>int</STRONG> <EM>x</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>

       <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>vw_printw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>va_list</STRONG> <EM>varglist</EM><STRONG>);</STRONG>

       <EM>/*</EM> <EM>obsolete</EM> <EM>*/</EM>
       <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>vwprintw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>va_list</STRONG> <EM>varglist</EM><STRONG>);</STRONG>


</PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
       <STRONG>printw</STRONG>, <STRONG>wprintw</STRONG>, <STRONG>mvprintw</STRONG>, and <STRONG>mvwprintw</STRONG> are  analogous  to  <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG>.
       In  effect,  the  string  that  would be output by <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG> is instead
       output as though <STRONG><A HREF="curs_addstr.3x.html">waddstr(3x)</A></STRONG> were used with  <EM>win</EM>  (or  <STRONG>stdscr</STRONG>)  as  its
       first argument.

       <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>  and  <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG>  are  analogous  to  <STRONG>vprintf(3)</STRONG>, and perform a
       <STRONG>wprintw</STRONG> using a variable  argument  list.   The  third  argument  is  a
       <EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM>, a pointer to a list of arguments, as defined in <EM>stdarg.h</EM>.


</PRE><H2><a name="h2-RETURN-VALUE">RETURN VALUE</a></H2><PRE>
       These functions return <STRONG>ERR</STRONG> upon failure and <STRONG>OK</STRONG> upon success.

       In <EM>ncurses</EM>, failure occurs if the library cannot allocate enough memory
       for the buffer into which the output is formatted,  or  if  the  window
       pointer <EM>win</EM> is null.

       Functions  prefixed with "mv" first perform cursor movement and fail if
       the position (<EM>y</EM>, <EM>x</EM>) is outside the window boundaries.


</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></H2><PRE>
       No wide character counterpart  functions  are  defined  by  the  "wide"
       <EM>ncurses</EM> configuration nor by any standard.  To format and write a wide-
       character string to a <EM>curses</EM> window,  consider  using  <STRONG>swprintf(3)</STRONG>  and
       <STRONG><A HREF="curs_addwstr.3x.html">waddwstr(3x)</A></STRONG> or similar.


</PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
       X/Open Curses Issue 4 describes these functions.  It specifies no error
       conditions for them.

       <EM>ncurses</EM> defines <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG> and <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG> identically  to  support  legacy
       applications.  However, the latter is obsolete.

       <STRONG>o</STRONG>   X/Open   Curses   Issue 4  Version 2  (1996),  marked  <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>  as
           requiring <EM>varargs.h</EM> and "TO BE WITHDRAWN", and specified  <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG>
           using the <EM>stdarg.h</EM> interface.

       <STRONG>o</STRONG>   X/Open  Curses  Issue 5,  Draft  2  (December 2007) marked <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>
           (along with <STRONG>vwscanw</STRONG> and the <EM>termcap</EM> interface) as withdrawn.  After
           incorporating  review  comments,  this became X/Open Curses Issue 7
           (2009).

       <STRONG>o</STRONG>   <EM>ncurses</EM> provides <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>, but marks it as deprecated.


</PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
       While <STRONG>printw</STRONG> was implemented in 4BSD (November  1980),  it  was  unused
       until  4.2BSD  (August  1983), which employed it for games.  That early
       version of <EM>curses</EM> preceded the ANSI C standard of 1989.  It did not use
       <EM>varargs.h</EM>,  though  that  had been available since Seventh Edition Unix
       (1979).  In 1991 (a couple of years after SVr4 was generally available,
       and  after  the C standard was published), other developers updated the
       library, using <EM>stdarg.h</EM> internally in 4.4BSD <EM>curses</EM>.   Even  with  this
       improvement,  BSD  <EM>curses</EM>  did  not  use  function prototypes (nor even
       declare functions) in <EM>curses.h</EM> until 1992.

       SVr2 (1984) documented <STRONG>printw</STRONG> and <STRONG>wprintw</STRONG> tersely as "printf on <STRONG>stdscr</STRONG>"
       and "printf on <EM>win</EM>", respectively.

       SVr3  (1987)  added  <STRONG>mvprintw</STRONG>  and <STRONG>mvwprintw</STRONG>, with a three-line summary
       asserting that they were analogous to <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG>,  explaining  that  the
       string  that  <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG> would write to the standard output stream would
       instead be output  using  <STRONG>waddstr</STRONG>  to  the  given  window.   SVr3  also
       implemented  <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>,  describing  its  third  parameter as a <EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM>,
       defined in <EM>varargs.h</EM>, and referred the reader to the manual  pages  for
       <EM>varargs</EM> and <EM>vprintf</EM> for detailed descriptions.

       SVr4  (1989)  introduced  no new variations of <EM>printw</EM>, but provided for
       using either <EM>varargs.h</EM> or <EM>stdarg.h</EM> to define the <EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM> type.

       X/Open Curses Issue 4 (1995), defined <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG>  to  replace  <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>,
       stating that its <EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM> type is defined in <EM>stdarg.h</EM>.


</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
       <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_addstr.3x.html">curs_addstr(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_scanw.3x.html">curs_scanw(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG>, <STRONG>vprintf(3)</STRONG>



ncurses 6.5                       2025-01-18                   <STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG>
</PRE>
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<li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-RETURN-VALUE">RETURN VALUE</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>
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